Well, we got home from the hospital yesterday. All things considered, labor and delivery went more quickly than expected, so a big thank you to all of you who were thinking "waterslide at the water park" for me on Monday.

When we went in for the induction on Sunday night, we discovered that I was already having contractions (which I didn't even know because there was no pain), so we got to skip the first step of the induction and go right to the Pitocin to augment the contractions.

Boy, did it augment the contractions.

By 2:30 or 3 am, I was in a lot of pain, and they gave me the option of trying a shot to help take the edge off, or going straight to the epidural. I thought I'd suck it up and opted for a couple of shots to help with it. They did absolutely nothing other than make me nauseated. About 5:30, I said "I'm ready for my epidural" and the anesthesiologist came to do it. Ahh, sweet relief. My advice for anyone having a baby and planning to have an epidural is to get it as soon as it's advisable. No point in playing the martyr like I did and suffering. I wish I'd done it hours earlier. They're terrifid at Mary Birch, they've got it down to a science where it takes the pain away, but you can still feel your legs (although they're a little floppy and weird) and move them. I had a button I could press if I needed a little "extra" medication above the level I was automatically getting.

The epidural must have helped relax me because I went from 1 centimeter dilated to 5 in a matter of minutes, which then put some stress on the baby. They kept a close watch on both me and him for the rest of the time.

By 10:30 am, I was totally dilated and ready to start pushing. Instead, I threw up (which apparently was equivalent to about a half hour's worth of pushing), which moved the baby down quite a bit and his heart rate dropped. In what felt like two seconds, my OB, the anesthesiologist, a flock of nurses and a NICU team were in the room, and the doc said never mind pushing for a while, we were going to push the baby out now. I didn't push for long, and then Zachary was out and being checked by the NICU team. It turned out that the cord was wrapped around his neck once and then again around his body, and so those pushes and contractions were squishing the cord, affecting his connection to the placenta.

He was carefully checked over and declared to be in good shape. Once things settled down, he weighed in at 7 lbs, 11 oz and 19 and a half inches. A good size - not too big, not too little. We recovered in the labor and delivery room for about two hours and then headed up to our postpartum room, where we stayed for the rest of our visit.

I'm sore, I'm tired, and I'm very grateful that everything went well and we had such an excellent medical team to look after us. I absolutely recommend Mary Birch if you're planning to have a baby in San Diego.

Bryan's been great with Zach, and he and I are getting to know the little guy. Bryan's put up a Flickr photostream and is updating it regularly.

In the meantime, I apologize if we don't reply right away to email, phone or text messages. We're up to our elbows in feedings and diapers....and trying to sneak in a nap here and there. We'll be a little more sociable next week, I promise!

It's 3 am and I can't sleep. 3 am seems to be the magic time for me - if I sleep through it, I stay asleep. If I wake up...

Bryan's snoring tonight, which I can't really complain about too much since I've apparently become quite the accomplished snorer myself during pregnancy. He actually recorded me one night, and it was so appalling I almost wet my pants laughing. So I'm not griping about his snores, because mine have been far worse.

I find the insomnia I've had occasionally over the past few months to be proof that nature has a cruel sense of humor. In a few more days, we'll hardly be getting any sleep with the arrival of the baby, so you'd think nature would provide us a way to hoard sleep as much as we could right now. And of course I have things to do tomorrow, so I can't just sleep in forever. We're taking Bailey for a bath in the morning, going out to breakfast, we need to hit up the commissary for groceries before the "20 Year Storm" the forecasters are threatening us with. We had something like 140-some days without precipitation, so as far as I'm concerned, the cooler weather and rain will be a welcome change, but I don't want to have to lug groceries to my car (which is inevitably parked in BFE at the base) in pouring rain.

Anyway, my usual approach to being awake at 3 is to check on the dog (racked out on the couch after a particularly long day at dog daycare yesterday), check email (nothing interesting), catch up on people's blogs (hello, people, I need you to update regularly - otherwise what else am I going to do a 3 am when I can't sleep?!) and play games. Usually a round of Alchemy takes me about 45 minutes. Bailey usually gets up at some point to con me into letting her stroll around the yard (and inevitably bark), and then goes and steals my spot in bed.

So the plan is still to have a baby on Monday. At my doctor's appointment today, he went over the induction process and said (much to my shock, horror and chagrin) that even though I'm going in to the hospital to start the process around 7 Sunday night that he doesn't really expect to have a baby in hand until late Monday afternoon at the earliest. (Gah! Ack!) Somehow I felt it would be a poor move to earnestly explain to him that I'd been thinking more along the lines of having a baby in hand by 10 am at the latest. I guess that's still a possibility, but not the most likely one. So if you have a spare minute or two on monday, repeat after me "Fast and smooth, like a water slide at the water park," which is the mantra I've been chanting at the baby for the past couple of weeks.

I've been asked an awful lot lately about how I'm feeling, and the answer is usually "Fine." Sometimes it's "Fine, but tired."

Invariably (and inexplicably), people seem disappointed by this response. I'm not sure why. Maybe they want or expect me to say I'm miserable? That I can't wait to get this kid out? That I'm sick of being pregnant?

While I wouldn't say I'm one of those folks who has absolutely loved being pregnant, mostly it's been unventful and low key, and I feel pretty indifferent about the whole process. And after doing some reading, I'm absolutely convinced that life is a lot easier with the kid inside me than it will be when he's outside. I mean, at this point all I have to do to take care of him is eat, sleep and pee. Pretty much on my terms. He's got 24 hour "womb service," which means he gets to eat, sleep and pee whenever he wants with no muss or fuss required to have his needs met. Yeah, I'm pretty ungainly at this point - it takes longer (and some melodramatic sighing for good measure) when I get up, and my waist is a lot larger than I'd like, but I'm in no hurry for the baby to go anywhere.

At last week's doctor's appointment, there was no sign that the kiddo had plans to go anywhere before the planned induction on the 24th, either, so he and I seem to be on the same page as far as that's concerned. So unless things radically change, we'll head to the hospital the evening of the 23rd and have a (much higher maintenance than he is now) baby sometime on the 24th. I'm taking advantage of that your-insurance-must-cover-at-least-a-48-hour-stay-in-the-hospital-after-birth legislation and should be home on the 26th if there aren't any unexpected surprises.

Life as we know it changes in a week.

So today was my second day not working. Yesterday I managed to fill the day with housework and taking my car in for its 35,000 mile maintenance at the dealer. In the evening, I went to Bryan's hockey game. Had a good time, even though they lost (in the playoffs, bummer), and would probably go again. He has cool guys on his team, and they played well despite the loss.

Today was an at-loose-ends sort of day. I have a list of boring household chores and errands that need to get done, but pretty much ducked responsibility in favor of a book and disc 2 of Season One of Entourage (thanks, Netflix!). Tomorrow I'll be in the office for an early meeting that I'm technically probably not supposed to be at, but it's regarding equipment and the new building, and I definitely want to have a say in that since we'll hopefully be expanding the hearing aid program to a satellite office there. I've also got a routine doctor's appointment later tomorrow morning in the same building, so it'll work out fine.

It's weird not to be working, though.

Last year, I took two weeks off after my neck surgery, but I wasn't feeling great (wasn't feeling too badly, but wasn't feeling a hundred percent), so it was a little different. Now, I'm just biding my time. Yeah, it's a little awkward to have to get up if I sit on the floor, but that's about it in terms of issues. People keep asking if I wish it'd just be over, and really, the answer is not yet. I feel mostly fine, and am fine with the baby arriving on the 24th. Bryan will be done with dockside and has three weeks of leave arranged to help with the transition, my mom will be arriving on the 22nd, so at least one of us will know what the heck to do with a newborn and I had a feeling about the 24th before the doctor even started talking induction. We have a lot of Libras in the family, and it seems fitting somehow that maybe the baby will be one, too.

In the meantime, I have a (rapidly dwindling, since I read about a paperback a day) stack of books, computer games and ...oh yeah, those chores to occupy me. It's just a waiting game now.

When I dropped Bailey off at dog daycare this morning, one of the girls mentioned that Bailey's boyfriend was there today. This was the first I'd heard of a boyfriend, so I immediately pumped her for information.

Bailey's boyfriend is named Finknottle and apparently she's quite the flirty girl when he's around. My typically horrendous, ball-hoarding, don't-even-look-at-my ball girl shares and swaps her tennis balls with ol' Finknottle. She licks his ears and shakes her butt at him - dog body language for "Hey there, big fella."

Rumor has it Finknottle can hold two tennis balls in his mouth at a time. That's probably what makes him so attractive.

Lucky, my parents' dog and Bailey's other boyfriend will be crushed.

Have you seen my waistline? It's been missing for a couple of months. It used to look like this:

At 36 and a half weeks of pregnancy, it now looks like this:

Please note that the difference in facial expressions is probably due to the fact that in the first picture, I'd had approximately three to four drinks. In the second picture, I haven't had a drink in nine months, and I have to wear elastic-waistband pants. I'm not even completely sure if I have feet anymore!

(Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea)

I'm hoping to find my waist again by late October. In the meantime, if you see it lying around somewhere, will you let me know? I miss it.

The weather is currently a balmy 77 degrees. Is it wrong that it actually feels a little on the cool side? When I left work a little after noon today, it was 82 and felt absolutely wonderful. We're off of air conditioning and back on to fans, and I have a feeling we'll both sleep well tonight with just the windows open and fan going. The air conditioner guy is still supposed to come on friday (you never know, we might get another heat wave since it's been such a wacky summer already), so we'll get the central air fixed, but man, it feels so great right now! I might need a sweater!

Yesterday hit a record-setting high of 108, and a record-setting low of 77. Today is marginally better - I can walk out to the fridge to refill my ice water without feeling too woozy. It's pretty sad when it's still mid to upper 90s and it feels like a relief. The humidity is a little better today, too, down to about 40% from 70%. Hopefully this weather pattern is on its way out and we'll get some cooler temps. I've pretty much been barricaded in the bedroom ("The Cool Room") with the air conditioner since Saturday. Bailey tends to be indescisive - when Bryan's in the bedroom too, she comes in, but otherwise if he's at the boat or out playing xBox, she wants to know what he's up to.

This is my last week at work until February, another week of half days, which are very do-able. I have some lovely patients who are very excited on my behalf, and I'll miss those folks. The cranky mean ones, well, I won't miss them too terribly much while I'm out. It's harder to let go of work than I expected. Last week and this week I began the process of turning stuff over to colleagues. I expected I'd be thrilled, with a feeling of "see ya later, suckers!", but it's partly the control freak in me ("will they do it right while I'm gone?") and part of it is just that I work with great people and will miss seeing them pretty much every day. Yes, I can take the baby in to visit them if I'm crazy enough to get bored at home, but still...

Tonight I've got a breastfeeding class. Three hours of milk ducts and let-down reflexes. Whee! At least it'll be air-conditioned on someone else's dime!

According to weather.com, it's 96 at the house right now. Time to hit the a/c. Looks like tomorrow and tuesday are supposed to be scorchers, too, and then a break in the temps mid week.

Thank heavens I have such a terrific husband. I was determined to try to power through the heat wave on fans alone, but by 2pm yesterday, when the temperature hit over 100 degrees, Bryan talked me into the rational decision to go get one of those portable air conditioners. He pointed out that getting a hotel for us and the dog for three days would cost almost as much as an a/c, and this way we can continue to use it in the future. So off we went, and my Air Conditioning Hero got us a Sharp unit from Bed Bath and Beyond (and hooray for their 20% off the item of your choice coupons!). It took a little while to get the temp in the bedroom under control, but we slept in comfort last night.

Today's supposed to be over 100 again, and tomorrow will be close to, if not over 100 as well. It was over 80 at 8am while I was watching the news (and that was downtown, which is always cooler than here), so even though I'm watching tv in the living room at the moment, Bailey and I will be headed to the nice, cool bedroom once the temperature gets too high up here. Once again, we're probably going to squander our life savings on the electric bill, but that's life, and as pregnant as I am, it's well worth it!

Have I mentioned how much my husband rocks?!